Looted letters. Book culture of Ḥafṣid Ifrīqiya (1229-1574) and Arabic manuscripts in early modern Europe after the sack of Tunis (1535)

The present thesis is based on the study of the Arabic manuscripts looted during the sack of Tunis in 1535, and then brought to Europe and sold or donated to important scholars and institutions in Italy, France, and the Habsburg Empire. The manuscript corpus examined here is thus delimited by a common provenance and collection history. The main objective of the project is to reconstruct this corpus of Ḥafṣid manuscripts. Situated in the research field of the Material Culture of the Islamic Mediterranean, the core of the dissertation is an in-depth study of manuscripts from Ḥafṣid Ifrīqiya (1229- 1574). They are studied with regard to their aesthetic and codicological aspects, in order to understand Ḥafṣid book production. It will be argued that uncovering the visual choices behind stylistic developments helps to reveal the decisions behind the process of establishing a Ḥafṣid (imperial) identity. Furthermore, the manuscript notes – such as owner-marks and endowment deeds – help to recreate the context of the manuscripts, as well as the practices and agents involved in the book culture of Ḥafṣid Ifrīqiya. In addition to providing an art-historical and sociohistorical interpretation of the manuscripts and contributing to the study of North African material culture, the corpus allows this research to offer new perspectives on a range of related topics. Starting with the re-evaluation of contemporary sources on a landmark event in Early Modern history, and an innovative focus on its interpretation, the project adds a missing aspect to the otherwise well-studied and important research field of Charles V and the sack of Tunis in 1535. The project brings Early Modern scholarship on Arabic texts and language into context by utilising the manuscripts from Ifrīqiya as a source to map the interest in, and scholarship on, Arabic manuscripts in Early Modern Europe.